The Clash‘s Joe Strummer called the late Shane MacGowan one of the best lyricists of the 20th century. MacGowan’s gutter-drenched vocals and lyrics penetrated the early ’80s London punk scene and the traditional Irish folk and rock spouted by The Pogues.
Celtic folk stompers. Irish punks. The Pogues influenced North American punks like Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, and Canadians The Mahones while infiltrating everyone from Bruce Springsteen, to Bob Dylan, who once had the Pogues open for him—and called out MacGowan, who was in attendance at his November 2022 concert in Dublin, Ireland—along with collaborators and fans like Johnny Depp, Jesse Malin, who wrote his 2019 ode to the Pogues, “Shane,” and Nick Cave, among others.
The Pogues sang of degenerates, outcasts, political oppression, and bygone days. Here’s a look at five songs that helped define the band’s chronicle of stories since The Pogues emerged in 1982 through MacGowan’s departure in 1991.
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1. “Dark Streets of London” (1982)
Written by Shane MacGowan
The band’s 1982 debut, Red Roses for Me, was a collection of old Irish and American folk songs, and sea shanties, from “Waxie’s Dargle,” “Greenland Whale Fisheries,” and several tracks were written by MacGowan including the pub-chanting “Streams of Whiskey” and the penetrating “Dark Streets of London.” An earlier predecessor of “Fairytale in New York,” on “Dark Streets of London,” MacGowan sings of being down and out during Christmastime.
Then the winter came down and I loved it so dearly
The pubs and the bookies, where you’d spend all your time
And the old men that were singing “When the Roses Bloom Again
And Turn Like the Leaves To a New Summertime”
Now the winter comes down, I can’t stand the chill
That comes to the streets around Christmastime
I’m buggered to damnation and I haven’t got a penny
To wander the dark streets of London
And every time that I look on the first day of summer
Takes me back to the place where they gave ECT
And the drugged up psychos with death in their eyes
And how all of this really means nothing to me
2. “A Pair of Brown Eyes” (1985)
Written by Shane MacGowan
Produced by Elvis Costello, The Pogues’ second album Rum Sodomy & the Lash was the first release by the band to hit the UK charts at No. 13 with the charging pre-Christian Irish mythology of “The Sick Bed Of Cuchalainn,” Ewan MacColl’s “Dirty Old Town, and “Sally MacLennane,” which was named after an Irish stout. There’s also one of MacGowan’s more nostalgic tales, “A Pair of Brown Eyes,” marking a conversation between him and an elder war survivor.
“A Pair of Brown Eyes” was the first song by the Pogues to hit the UK charts at No. 72.
One summer evening drunk to hell
I stood there nearly lifeless
An old man in the corner sang
Where the water lilies grow
And on the jukebox Johnny sang
About a thing called love
And its how are you kid and what’s your name
And how would you bloody know?
In blood and death neath a screaming sky
I lay down on the ground
And the arms and legs of other men
Were scattered all around
Some cursed, some prayed, some prayed then cursed
Then prayed and bled some more
And the only thing that I could see
Was a pair of brown eyes that was looking at me
But when we got back, labeled parts one to three
There was no pair of brown eyes waiting for me
[RELATED: The Story and Meaning Behind The Pogues’ Drunken Holiday Classic “Fairytale Of New York”]
The Rum Sodomy & the Lash track “The Old Main Drag” also appeared on the soundtrack of Gus Van Sant’s 1991 film My Own Private Idaho, starring the late River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.
3. “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” (1988)
Written by Shane MacGowan
The Pogues’ biggest album, If I Should Fall From Grace With God, which hit No. 3 on the UK Albums chart, was the vessel for the band’s biggest hit “Fairytale of New York,” while embracing more pastoral, traditional marches, and sentimental stories from “The Broad Majestic Shannon’/’Lullaby Of London,” “Thousands Are Sailing,” and more.
Following the single “Fairytale of New York,” “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” opened the album, peaked at No. 58 on the UK charts, and captured the inner workings of The Pogues, questioning religion, purpose, and an acceptance of one’s mortality.
If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I’m buried in the sod
But the angels won’t receive me
Let me go, boys, let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud, where the rivers all run dry
This land was always ours
It was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others
Let them go, boys, let them go, boys
Let them go down in the mud, where the rivers all run dry
Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
And no corpse can lie upon me
4. “Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six“
Written by Terry Woods and Shane MacGowan
Written by the Pogues’ Terry Woods and MacGowan If I Should Fall From Grace With God track “Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six” recounts the violence and the Troubles from the 1960s through the ’90s in Northern Ireland.
It’s sung in two parts with Woods taking the first, recounting the violence of The Troubles and leaving why someone is leaving it all behind: No, I’ll not return to feel more sorrow / Nor to see more young men slain. The second part was written and sung by MacGowan as an ode to the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four, nearly a dozen Irish men who were tortured for their confessions of pub bombings in both areas in England.
Through the last six years I’ve lived through terror
And in the darkened streets the pain
Oh, how I long to find some solace
In my mind I curse the strain
So farewell you streets of sorrow
And farewell you streets of pain
No, I’ll not return to feel more sorrow
Nor to see more young men slain
There were six men in Birmingham
In Guildford there’s four
That were picked up and tortured
And framed by the law
And the filth got promotion
But they’re still doing time
For being Irish in the wrong place and at the wrong time
In Ireland they’ll put you away in the Maze
In England they’ll keep you for seven long days
God help you if ever you’re caught on these shores
The coppers need someone and they walk through that door
5. “Summer in Siam” (1990)
Written by Shane MacGowan
The Pogues’ fifth album Hell’s Ditch was a departure from the band’s traditional folk-punk with fewer traditional renderings. Produced by Joe Strummer, Hell’s Ditch was also the last Pogues album to feature MacGowan. Hell’s Ditch highlights more debauched stories of poets, libertines, and mavericks from MacGowan’s ode to Spanish socialist playwright Federico García Lorca on “Lorca’s Novena” and the more sentimental “Summer in Siam,” sinking into the changing and passing times in one’s life.
This is a vaguely sentimental love song
Called “Summer In Siam”, it’s for the golden hood
When it’s summer in Siam
And the moon is full of rainbows
When it’s summer in Siam
Though we go through many changes
When it’s summer in Siam
Then all I really know is that I truly am
In the summer in Siam
In the summer in Siam
In the summer in Siam
When it’s summer in Siam
And the moon is full of rainbows
When it’s summer in Siam
And we’ve gone through many changes
Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images
